Details
DESCRIPTION
The Wine Seekers' Guide to the Livermore Valley is the first exclusive guide to this little-known wine region, introducing adventurous wine lovers to more than forty wineries, the owners and winemakers, and their superb wines.
The Wine Seekers' guides lead you to delight-filled locales where exceptional but perhaps unheralded wines are produced with old-world quality by families eager to share not only their award-winning products but also their harmonious lifestyle and welcoming communities with you.
- The first exclusive guide to the little-known Livermore Valley, CA, wine country
- Introduces more than forty wineries, the owners and winemakers, and their superb wines.
- Directions, operating hours, and contact information for each winery
- More to see and do in the region as well as recreation recommendations
- Where to stay, and a detailed restaurant guide
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas C. Wilmer
REVIEWS
"Complete visitor's guide and more: Wilmer's book tells the collective personal story of winemaking in this historic, burgeoning, undersung California wine region. The Wine Seeker's Guide will put you on the fast track to being a Livermore Valley wine insider." ~ Sara Schneider, Wine Editor, Sunset Magazine
Mon Dieu! Does the world need another wine book? Believe it or not, it needs this one. Thomas C. Wilmer's The Wine Seekers Guide to Livermore Valley is free of cute cant and pompous pretension. It reminds me of an afternoon's long, comfort-filled conversation with a savvy but generous friend eager to share with new-old friends his enthusiasm for good things: culture, cuisine, community, art, history; all those qualities that pair so well with fine wines and la dolce vita. Northern Californians have accustomed themselves to thinking of vines and vineyards as bounty given by Mother Nature and wine gods (Dionysus, Bacchus, Alexis Lichine) primarily to valleys named Napa and Sonoma, with an occasional nod in the direction of Alexander. Wilmer takes us wandering in a strangely unfamiliar wine valley that lives nearby but, until recently, has seemed almost remote: Livermore. (Names on the land, however, are hoary with age for western vineyards: Concannon, Ruby Hill, Wente, the oldest, continually-operating, family-owned winery in California.) As we wind with Wilmer along tranquil trails or sit in the sun sipping a little something at a sidewalk café; as we stroke a golf ball or roll down the tracks of the Niles Canyon Railway, we ease through history: Did you know that James Concannon came from the Aran Islands off Ireland to grow grapes here in 1883? Are you aware that wines offered for Communion by the first Archbishop of San Francisco, Joseph Alémany, were descendants of cuttings from the Bordeaux vineyards of Château dYquem that produce "the costliest wines in the world?" Whatever delights are available throughout Livermore Valley, youll find your way to them in these pages: bookstores, theater, festivals, lodgings, restaurants, villages, parks, all in the company of compelling photographs from yesteryear to yesterday. Yes; the world, especially the California corner of it, needed this book. ~ Georgia I. Hesse
"Wine writer Thomas Wilmer has collected not only a guidebook for the Livermore region, with information about the wineries, restaurants, and places of interest, but has gone deeper, to provide information about the history of the area, the multi-generational family wineries, and the connection many of the current wine makers have with the area and history of Livermore Valley. The wineries range from Wente and Concannon (together producing almost a half a million cases annually), to the Wood Family Vineyards that produce just 1,500. In addition to the winery profiles, The Wine Seeker's Guide to Livermore Valley has local attractions, like the Niles Canyon Wine Train, local restaurants, and for those interested in outside activities, golf and local hiking trails. So when you are looking for a new local wine experience, consider Livermore Valley and the many family wineries that call it home and take along this guide. You'll be glad you did to help discover the many "hidden" gems of Livermore Valley." ~ Ross Rojek, Sacramento/San Francisco Book Review
